Home by Dark

“She reminds me of you at that age.” Meredith watched Mandy, smiling slightly. “Sweet and serious.”

“Mandy has a mischievous side, as well.” Rachel put a spoonful of sugar in her coffee and stirred. “But then I guess I did, too.”

“As I recall, you were the one who talked us into catching minnows in the creek when I had a good dress on,” Meredith said. “Not that I wasn’t just as happy to get rid of that ruffled number my mother had picked out.”

“I think you fell in the mud on purpose.” Amazing, how easy it was to slip back to that relationship they’d had twenty summers ago. “I see you’re picking your own clothes now.” She nodded at Meredith’s softly tailored shirt, worn with a single gold chain and a neat pair of tan slacks.

“Eventually even my mother had to admit that I wasn’t the frilly sort.” Meredith raised an eyebrow. “But your change in dress is more serious. How is your family adjusting to having you back again?”

Rachel shrugged. True, her denim skirt and plain cotton shirt were modest, but they were a far cry from Amish clothing. “Mixed reception, I guess. Mammi is glad to see Mandy, I’m sure, but Daad and my brother Mose gave me a distant nod the one time I saw them.”

She made an effort not to let the hurt show in her voice, but she had a feeling Meredith saw through it. Her face warmed with sympathy.

“What about your sisters? And the little brother...Benjamin, is it?”

Rachel nodded. “Benj, yes. He’s the only one who acts normally around me.” Except for those odd moments of fear and tension that still worried her. “The girls are like Mamm. Cautious.”

“I’m sorry,” Meredith said softly. “I know what it’s like to turn to a parent who’s not there.”

“I heard about your father’s death. I’m so sorry for your loss. You were still in college then, weren’t you?” Meredith had always been her father’s girl. She must have taken his passing hard.

Meredith nodded, staring absently down at her cup. “I still miss him. And my mother...well, she relies on me. So I’m still here.”

Something about her tone explained Meredith’s odd phrasing when she’d spoken of escaping Deer Run. She’d been talking about herself, not Rachel.

“Do you have a job here?” Jobs in Deer Run were few and far between, she’d think, it not being exactly a thriving metropolis.

“I’m an accountant. I have an office at the house, although sometimes I work on site at some of the small businesses I deal with.” Meredith’s voice was carefully expressionless, but Rachel suspected she knew whose idea it was that Meredith’s office should be at home, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. Mrs. King had always been the clinging sort.

Fortunately, Meredith didn’t seem to expect a response. She was watching Mandy again, amusement in her gaze. “Is she as imaginative as we were at that age?”

“I guess so. Although I don’t think she could possibly be as imaginative as we were that summer we were ten.” Rachel smiled, too, remembering.

“That was mainly Lainey Colton’s fault,” Meredith said. “She was the only kid I ever met who could create a fantasy world as real as that one was. We basically lived in Lainey’s world that whole summer.”

“Knights and fairies and dragons...trust me, that’s not the usual imaginative fare for Amish children. Maybe that was why it enthralled me so much.”

And it was equally unusual for an Amish child to spend so much time with two Englisch friends, but Mamm had been preoccupied in helping to care for Aunt Hannah, who’d been ordered bed rest during a difficult pregnancy, and she’d just been happy to have her children out from underfoot. Besides, Mamm had considered she had a duty to Lainey’s Amish great-aunt to provide a suitable companion for her visitor.

“It seems strange now, not seeing Lainey at all since that summer,” Meredith said. “We wrote for a while after she moved back with her mother, but then we lost touch.”

Rachel nodded. “The same with me. That whole summer was just...different.”

“Different,” Meredith echoed. “Remember how Lainey insisted Aaron Mast was an enchanted prince? And we followed him around for weeks, looking for a way to break the spell?”

“I remember.” Aaron Mast, with his golden hair, even features, kind blue eyes—he’d been the perfect Prince Charming for three imaginative young girls. He’d probably never known, from the lofty heights of his eighteen years, how they’d felt about him.

Rachel drew in a long breath and blew it out in something that was almost a sigh. She hadn’t thought of Aaron in years, and now he’d come up twice in two days.

“And then he drowned.” Meredith shook her head. “When I look back at it, it seems to me the summer ended then. Our prince was dead, the parents clamped down on where we were as if we might fall into the dam as well and Lainey was sent back to her mother. The magic was over.”

Over and forgotten, Rachel thought. And there was no reason at all for the odd foreboding at the back of her mind.

* * *

COLIN GLANCED INTO the window of Millers’ store and stopped dead. Duke, strolling at his side, gave him a reproachful look and then sat down, leaning heavily against his leg.

Rachel Mason and Meredith King sat at one of the small round tables, heads together, talking. Something teased at his memory—an image of them as little girls, busily building a tree house in the massive oak tree in the side yard of the King house. It looked as if Rachel had found an old friend.

They were getting up now, obviously saying goodbye. With a sudden decision, he moved to the door and stood waiting for Rachel to come out.

She and Mandy emerged a few minutes later. Rachel’s eyes narrowed a bit at the sight of him, but all of Mandy’s attention was for Duke.

“What a nice dog. Is he yours? What’s his name? Can I pet him?” Mandy pelted him with questions, not bothering with pleasantries.

“Yes. Duke. And yes, he’d like to be petted,” he said, smiling at the child’s enthusiasm.

“Nice dog,” Mandy crooned, dropping to her knees beside the dog and stroking his glossy black fur. “You’re such a good boy, Duke.”

Duke, a sucker for compliments, obliged with a gentle nuzzling of Mandy’s neck.

“Look, Mommy, he likes me.” Mandy shot a glance at her mother. “See, I’m really good with dogs. If I had a puppy—”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Rachel sounded as if that conversation was one they’d already had several times. “Say goodbye to Duke now. We need to get home.” She shifted a bag of groceries to her other arm to reach for her daughter’s hand.

He forestalled her by giving Mandy the leash. “We’ll walk along with you, and you can lead Duke. He needs a walk.”

“Can I really? Wow, thank you.” The warmth in Mandy’s little face made her response more than just the polite words of a well-brought-up child.

“Sure. And I’ll carry your mom’s package.” He reached for Rachel’s bag. She pulled away from him, but he didn’t drop his hand. “Come on, now,” he said softly. “You know perfectly well I can’t walk you home with you carrying the groceries and my hands free. What would people think of me?”

“You don’t need to be walking me...us...home at all.” Rachel’s pointed chin set stubbornly.

“Sure I do.” He nodded to Mandy, already ten yards ahead of them on the sidewalk. “Mandy has my dog.”

“You know perfectly well—” She stopped, maybe realizing how silly it sounded. “Oh, all right.” She surrendered the bag. “If you must.”

Satisfied, he fell into step with her. “You know, I’ll start thinking you don’t like me if you keep going on this way.”

“I—” She stopped, seeming to change her mind about what she was going to say. “I wouldn’t want people to start talking. That’s all.”

“Because I walked beside you and carried your groceries?” He raised an eyebrow. “We’re not ten, and I’m not carrying your books home from school.”

The warm peach of her skin seemed to deepen. “No. But you know how people talk in Deer Run. You just said it yourself, remember?”

“True.” He could hardly deny it. “But you can’t stop meeting old friends because of what people might say. I saw you and Meredith getting reacquainted,” he added quickly, before she could remind him that they’d never exactly been friends.

“It was nice to see Meredith again.” She took the diversion with a slight frown. “I was a little surprised she’s still living at home.”